Lights, Camera, Action!

I moved in with my Grandma last week. She's given me a place to stay while my life figures itself out. I say that because I'm no longer taking an active role in this process. I applied for a summer internship in New York and I am waiting for a reply that should come either this week or next. If it's no, I will go back to actively taking control of my own fate- if it's yes, I will happily pack my bags for a summer of uncertainty and adventure in the Great Apple (it shouldn't be surprising that this is the option I prefer).

So living with my grandma is fun :) But in keeping with the purpose of this blog as a place for sentiment I have a story to tell.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an actress. Unfortunately for me, I don't have a type A personality and turned out far to shy for that kind of thing. Granted I have a bizarre natural talent for memorizing lines and reciting them which I proudly demonstrated to my fourth grade class one talent show. They were unimpressed with my memorized recitation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and embarrassed, I gave up the idea of acting, adopting a dream to live a secluded life as a life house operator.

I also loved to play dress-up, something that would have recommended me to the theater well.

While my shyness kept me from pursuing childhood fantasies on the stage, it didn't keep me from loving the theater. Gaithersburg, Maryland where I grew up doesn't have many playhouses, but my parents used to take me and my brother to see all the local high school plays. The first one I remember was Little Shoppe of Horrors-- I remember it being a five star production complete with green streamers that fell from the rafters as the man-eating green plant devoured all the characters and proceeded to take over the world. I was hooked! Imagine my delight when my dad told me the play had been turned into a movie! You haven't seen Rick Moranis until you've seen him play Seymour Krelborn

or Steve Martin as Orin Scrivello, DDS. And they sing, it's cinematic heaven.

I didn't fully appreciate the twisted nature of this song until I was older, but I loved Steve Martin on his motorcycle.

Back to theater... When I was 10 my mom took me and my friend Nicole out of school one afternoon to see "The Fantasticks" at Ford's Theater. I remember after the play we looked around the museum there, I think they had the bullet there that killed President Lincoln and I remember thinking What an awful way to die, he didn't even get to see the end of the play!

In Junior High I decided if I was too shy to be in front of the stage I would go behind it, and I joined stage crew. That was loads of good fun! Building sets, playing with lighting and sound effects. I think I could be happy doing that for life. I was prop master for our production of "Kilroy was here" and stage assistant for "Annie." The only downside of being in a production is wanting to shoot someone every time "The sun will come out tomorrow" starts up again. I swear I couldn't listen to the soundtrack for Annie for at least 2 years after that play.

I gave up the theater in High School and stuck to Photography classes. I tried to take it back up in college but apparently you're only allowed to "explore your interests" at ASU as long as they are in Math or Science. If you want to take classes like stage crew, you need to declare a theater major.

I still love a good play! And I'll go as often as my pocketbook allows. Last night Grandma and I went to see "Sunset Boulevard." It's a musical-- "That means that the performers will periodically dance about and burst into song." (Mack, in Sabrina, the 2006 version). It's kind of a strange story-- sort of Breakfast at Tiffany's meets An American in Paris. It was one of those plays that you know Hollywood loves, because Hollywood loves stories about Hollywood. The music wasn't that great, but the sets were amazing, and the props were incredible (they had great looking old car from the 1940's that was in pristine condition!). I had a great time, and it reminded me how much I love going to plays.

Courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune.

I'm considering adding participate in a play to my bucket list-- It would be fun to be a do-er and not just be a spectator in life :)

Vacuum Repair extraordinaire by day, Cable repair woman by night

I like to fix things.
And I'm good at it.

I discovered this talent in Russia. In might have come from necessity when I found it difficult to communicate to people what the problem was so I just thought it was simpler to fix it myself, or maybe it arose from the fact that things kept breaking. Either way, I repaired door knobs, kitchen sinks, a shower hose (which in Russian is called a "Shlong" in case that ever comes up again, I'm ready for it), and a washer (before it broke again just before I found out I was moving to a new city, to which I replied "Ha! Now I don't have to deal with the washer!"). My theory is: it's not working, I can't hurt it worse right?

Today was the first stress-free day I've had in several weeks so I was going to clean my room and vacuum the house (Crazy fun, I know). And surprise! The vacuum cleaner was broken. (I'm about to amaze you with my vacuum cleaner terminology here...) The brush thing wasn't spinning. So I removed the screws on the plastic thing and the rubber-loopy thing that connected the brush to a metal post was broken.



I took the broken rubber piece to the vacuum store and bought a replacement for $2.77. I then spent a good 40 minutes trying to stretch the stupid rubber piece so that it would attach to the metal post. This was very difficult. I've since decided that upright Hoover vacuums are the most poorly designed pieces of machinery EVER! I say that only because I've had to attach that rubber thing back to its metal post 3 times since I've been acquainted with this vacuum... two of those times were today. After I managed to attach it, it ricocheted off not 15 minutes later. Granted I ran over the curtains while vacuuming, which were then promptly eaten by the vacuum, causing the rubber thing to dislodge... but STILL it shouldn't be that easy for it to come off; I've never had a vacuum do this before.

Hoover, I ask you, did you create a flimsy rubber-loopy thing/ metal post relationship just to torture people?! Let me explain the flaws in your design: 1) clearly the metal post should have something that keeps the rubber from escaping so easily. 2) The plastic piece that is in the way of the metal post serves NO purpose EXCEPT to make it very difficult to stretch the rubber from the brush to the post. I scraped at least 3 fingers on this blasted, useless piece of plastic. And 3) 5 screws, really?! If your customers are going to have to play the rubber attaching tango ever time they use their vacuum cleaner, you could have made a pop-off plastic guard. It would have made me much happier.

On the positive side--I am a vacuum cleaner repair extraordinaire! I do intend to put that on my resume.


Two weeks ago our cable went out in the family room. I was studying for my comprehensive exams so I had no intention on repairing it over the last two weeks. Plus the cable in my room was working fine so I figured it was a problem with the modem and not the provider. All the same, I wasn't going to mess with it until after comps. Today, I pulled out all the cables, reset the modem, attached everything back into place and voilà! Cable is back on.

I have talents. At least, I like to think so.